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Unaffiliated Voters Outnumber Republicans in North Carolina

On July 18, we reported that the number of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina was about to surpass the number of registered Republicans. It was just eight weeks ago, when Republicans outnumbered unaffiliated voters by 13,128 voter registrations. According to the latest voter registration statistics from the State Board of Elections, as of September 9, the number of unaffiliated voters now exceed the number of Republicans by 55 voters. There are 2,055,548 unaffiliated voters on North Carolina’s voter rolls compared to 2,055,493 registered Republicans.

The Trend

Since 2009, Democrats either lost voters or made only negligible gains each month, while Republicans can count on adding voters. It’s among the unaffiliated voting population where the voter registration explosion is occurring.

While at first glance it seems, Republicans are the most affected by this strong surge of unaffiliated voter registration, North Carolina’s Democrats are the only segment of the voter registration rolls to have decreased since 2009. Democrat’s voter registration continues to lag significantly behind Republicans and especially unaffiliated voters. Currently there are 2,640,470 Democrats registered to vote in North Carolina. Since January 2009, Democrats have experienced a net loss of 229,368 registered voters. In 2009, Democrats made up 45.7 percent of the voter rolls, today they are at just 38.9 percent of the total voter registration.

The unaffiliated ranks appear to have absorbed Democrats losses and more. Since January 2009, the unaffiliated bloc has seen a net gain of 652,823 voters and their share of the voter registration rolls have increased to 30.3 percent, up from 22.3 percent in 2009.

While yielding 2nd place in voter registration numbers to unaffiliated voters, Republicans continue to hold their own in voter registration. Republicans have seen a net gain of 50,344 voters since January 2009. At the same time their overall percentage share of registered voters in North Carolina has also declined. They now represent 30.3 percent of the entire voter registration rolls, down from 31.92 percent in 2009.

Source: Carolina Transparency from State Board of Elections Data

The unaffiliated voter registration trend that appears to have begun in 2009 shows no signs of ending. The chart below illustrates changes by party and unaffiliated voters in the four-year period after the 2008 and 2012 General Elections. Perhaps the most interesting take-away from the chart is the net loss of registered Democrats in the four years after the 2012.

Currently, there are eight counties where unaffiliated voters out-number both Republicans and Democrats, twenty-four counties where unaffiliated voters outnumber only Democrats and forty counties where they outnumber only Republicans.

Compare those numbers to early 2009 when unaffiliated voters out-numbered Democrats in nineteen counties and Republicans in only three counties. Nine years ago, there wasn’t a county in North Carolina where unaffiliated voters were the largest voting bloc.

Since February 4 (after most counties had performed required voter registration list maintenance tasks NCGS 163.82.14), Democrats have lost 3,829 registered voters, Republicans have gained 9,241, Libertarians have gained 1,468 voters and the unaffiliated ranks have a net gain of 47,099 registered voters.

Source: Carolina Transparency from State Board of Elections Data

Civitas will continue to track North Carolina’s voter registration statistics and especially the trend that shows no sign of stopping You can track voter registration with us by using the Carolina Transparency Voter Registration website. Keep up with voter registration changes in your county and statewide each week and see all the historical statistics and more by visiting Civitas’ Carolina Transparency website: www.carolinatransparency.com/voterregistration.

The Carolina Transparency Voter Registration website allows users to compare data week to week, month to month and even year to year. Voter registration numbers — are updated each week with data from the State Board of Elections.

Wow! How informative … and poorly written. Cut to the chase NCCivtas … why are you so keen on following this and why do you want your few followers to keep up with registration locally?

“Civitas will continue to track North Carolina’s voter registration statistics and especially the trend that shows no sign of stopping You can track voter registration with us by using the Carolina Transparency Voter Registration website. Keep up with voter registration changes in your county and statewide each week and see all the historical statistics and more by visiting Civitas’ Carolina Transparency website: http://www.carolinatransparency.com/voterregistration.”

It would be interesting to have a poll to see the reasoning behind this. Is this just a Republican/demorat trend where they want to vote the other side in a primary? Are they dissatisfied with the rule of the party they most closely identify with? Or whatever other major reason, it would just be interesting to see why the trend.

Myself, I am looking to become unaffiliated. The demorats have gone full whacko communist/socialist totalitarian government advocates, so that is not an option. The Republicans, at least at the federal level, are just ineffective when they get elected, saying they are going to do things like repeal Obamacare and then just going for a slightly less worse totalitarian big government view than the dems.

The largest voting bloc is the non-voter. The last mid-term election in North Carolina (2014) saw a mere 40% of eligible voters cast a vote. 60% stayed home. That should be the main story every day. Why isn’t it you ask? It would pop the bubble of fair and free elections that the 2 corrupt Corporate parties try to maintain.

As we see daily, NC Civitas backs one of the corrupt parties so it remains silent on the issue. More proof of NC Civitas acting as a Marketing organization and posing as an Academic Think Tank.

Voter nullification and Voter suppression has such a long history across the United States and North Carolina. For NC Civitas and Francis De Luca to evade the issue shows they are in bed with a long line of Voter Suppression advocacy, and they use pseudo-history v. historical fact for partisan gain.

Do I need to post the multiple Republicans caught on Tape since 2008 stating that Voter ID Laws were simply a partisan attempt to win elections??

I guess NC Civitas will revisit the 500 votes found in North Carolina to be cast by Felons who did not complete their sentences that Robin Hayes and the NCGOP held up as ‘gospel’ fact that Vote Fraud is rampant in the State. Then I hope they explain why the N&O is the source of Mr. Hayes’ claim.

In Maine and Vermont, Felons never lose their Right to Vote. The Voting Booths are brought into the Jails.

A handful of States still bar ex-Felons from Voting even when they have completed their sentences. The National Conference of State Legislatures exposed that as discriminatory many years ago as it both violates the US Constitution, and makes no sense.

Hi Scott,
if you have the documented links, please post them. It would be interesting to see that as all I can ever find is where dems conspiring to allow unlimited undocumented voting so that they can get the votes of illegal aliens, truck people to multiple precinct sites to vote, and of course troll the death notices to see who to say they are and cast a vote for the dead person. I will check back in case you do post.

Scott (the liar) does not believe in the rule of law. He is a typical Leftist. He loves to lie, actually relies on it. The only vote that should be suppressed is the illegal vote. Because illegal votes suppress the legal votes. That’s not asking much, is it. Stop illegal voting so ALL of our legal votes can count!

With the unaffiliated registered numbers larger than the Republicans, does this not argue that unaffiliated candidates should be able to get on a primary ticket without having to garner thousands of petition signatures? Are our legislators listening?

I wonder why Scott the Libertarian doesn’t have an answer for what Chuck Schumer said about letting illegals vote.Scott wants felons to vote and I’am sure he probably wants illegals voting also.Since both groups would overwhelmingly vote Democratic I find it very hard to believe he isn’t a Democrat.

Scott,nobody,ever said millions,so you exaggerate or lie.You never did explain this.Larry says
September 16, 2017 at 8:21 AM

I wonder why Scott the Libertarian doesn’t have an answer for what Chuck Schumer said about letting illegals vote.Scott wants felons to vote and I’am sure he probably wants illegals voting also.Since both groups would overwhelmingly vote Democratic I find it very hard to believe he isn’t a Democrat.

LOL, Donald Trump (who hired Kris Kobach) claimed “Millions” of fraudulent Votes were cast in 2016. You are as ignorant as the day is long!

I don’t listen to anything Chuck Schumer says. He is as vile as his Republican counterparts. You Larry are the only Partisan in this conversation. And your Partisanship forces you to believe myths, and perpetuate lies. It’s very sad.

Larry jumped over the fact that Trump did say millions of illegal votes were cast. That was a truthful statement. In fact Trump still makes the same false claim. Larry seems to have a deep seated inability to face the truth so he uses the only tool in his bag; the disparagement of others.

Nobody but entertainment shock jocks on radio, internet and tv believe Barack Obama was a communist. I doubt that they even believe it. It sells so they say it, and people like Larry buy their evil wares.

Jack,the Gimmedats say they are for wealth redistribution,why don’t you explain the difference between that and Socialism and Communism.All three involve taking from ones that earn it and giving it to the ones that don’t.

How incredible that Larry believes people who collect Welfare; have an Obamaphone (a program that existed long before Obama, but Larry doesn’t know that); are on Food Stamps (another program operating for a very long time before Obama); or receive Medicaid; run the country. You just can’t get to the level of stupidity Larry exhibits without being extremely self-centered and harboring all types of fear and bigotry. Fears that are perpetuated by the deceit at NC Civitas.

Charles Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 1990, has proposed a Guaranteed Income to help the economy, be humanitarian and replace the Welfare State. F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, 2 icons of ‘conservative economics’ also supported National Healthcare and Guaranteed Incomes.

How incredible is it that retarded Jack doesn’t know how much the hard working people of this country have paid out for the poor and the ones that refuse to work.22Trillion and we have more like Jack with his hand out than ever before. SUMMARY In his January 1964 State of the Union address, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.” In the 50 years since that time, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution. Yet progress against poverty, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, has been minimal, and in terms of President Johnson’s main goal of reducing the “causes” rather than the mere “consequences” of poverty, the War on Poverty has failed completely. In fact, a significant portion of the population is now less capable of self-sufficiency than it was when the War on Poverty began.

In his speech on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New City, King connected the war in Vietnam with the “war on poverty”:

“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor—both black and white—through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home.”

We have spent 22 Trillion on these people and they are worse off than ever.The Gimmedat Party have destroyed the poor with these programs of we will pay you more every time you have a kid.Everytime you have a kid the Gimmedats get another vote.We only pay if there is no man living with the women.Thats a real smart way of destroying families.How much does Jack and Scott think we should spend on this failed programs?Unlimited since it only affects taxpayers,I’am guessing.